


Tetrodoxin

by PresidentGuppy



Series: Neurotoxinverse [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: BDSM, Bondage, M/M, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tentacles, Various Kinks, creature AU, dub-con, leviathan!bill, puns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-03-16 22:21:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13645617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PresidentGuppy/pseuds/PresidentGuppy
Summary: Various collections of shorts centered around the characters within Neurotoxinverse, generally between 500-1000 words.





	1. Honesty

**Author's Note:**

> How much honesty is "too much"?

There are many things Dipper enjoys about Bill. His endless energy; his flowing hair and erratic curiosity. His mad laughter and witty remarks.

 

_This is not one of them._

 

“I’m sorry,” Dipper says, voice flat. “ _What was that?_ ”

 

Bill, unperturbed, opens his gaping maw filled with silver teeth and ancient secrets to answer—

 

“No.” Dipper interrupts. “Shut _up_.”

 

Bill pouts. “Whats the _matter_? Here I am claiming my undying love for you, and yet here _you_ are, throwing my words to the sea!”

 

Dipper grimaces.

 

“Bill,” he tries. He settles a beseeching hand on the tentacle currently toying with his shorts. “I know you are… _not human_ , and therefore have… _nonstandard_ practices when it comes to…. _this_.”

 

He makes a helpless little gesture at their current position; himself, flat on the floor of his room surrounded by half-finished manuscripts and empty ink cartridges. At Bill, looming over him with a shot of Ford’s emergency antidote in one hand and a set of police-grade handcuffs in the other.

 

“—but _please_ believe me,” Dipper struggles onward, already sensing Bill’s admittedly limited attention span wandering south, “that when you say… _that_. Its kind of, er, _scary_? To me.”

 

Bill blinks. “How so?”

 

Dipper takes a deep breath. Then, at Bill’s continued bafflement, _another_.

 

“Bill if you tried to cut me open to crawl into my ribcage _I would die_.”

 

Another blink. “Yes.”

 

“ _Then why did you say it?”_

_“_ Just being honest!” Bill chirps. Then, a bit hesitantly. “I’m not _going_ to, y’know.”

 

Dipper levels a glare at the leviathan on his lap and says, his voice oozing sulfur, “Oh _really_.”

 

“ _Really_ ,” Bill rolls his one visible eye, looking for all the world that he would like to take it back. “I already agreed that I wouldn’t _hurt_ or _maim_ or _kill_ you, didn’t I?”

 

At Dipper’s disgruntled noise, Bill sniggers. His humor is at odds with his actions; his arms wander and caress with a sweet cadence; a soothing balm to his seething ire.

 

He was getting better at diverting Dipper’s negativity; sometimes to an extent that can only be described as _terrifying_.

 

“Come on,” Bill drawls, setting the antidote on a nearby stack of paper to better drag Dipper forward, his breath a whisper of death on his lips when he hums, “ _Certainly theres something ‘nonstandard’ that you’d like to do to me, hm?_ ”

 

Dipper, rather unhelpfully, does not say that he wants to, on occasion—just _fleetingly,_ like a glimmer of the sun on the sea _—_ rip out Bill’s heart. To eat the organ, fluttering and pulsing, in front of his surprised, _pleased_ face.

 

“I _guess_.” he says instead, obligingly folding his hands behind his back to greet the sheer cold of the cuffs.

 

Bill smiles at him winningly. He’s a warm current on a cold day, dragging Dipper deeper and deeper into his darkest abyss.

 

He’s not sure how far down he wants to go, but knows that he may never reach the bottom of the infinite cataclysm that is Bill.

 

He succumbs to the inevitable pull of his obsession.

 

Into the void.

 

Into _everything_.

 


	2. Break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy V-Day I hope you're all doing well >u>;;

There are many differences between Bill and Dipper.

 

For one, Bill has all the enthusiasm of a train slamming into a very unfortunate cow at the rate of about hundred kilometers an hour _at all times_. He devours food like he hasn’t eaten in months. He moves as if incapable of ever stopping.

 

He is the _noisiest_ motherfucker Dipper has ever met.

 

“Bill,” Dipper hums pleasantly around the throbbing in his temples that screamed _stress_ , “ _please give it back_.”

 

“Make me!” Bill chirps back, equally saccharine. He flutters his lashes (long, soft, faintly _glowing_ ) in a mockery of a leer. Dipper can’t recall a single time where he hasn’t followed up his statements with some sort of vulgar hint. Some sort of desperate noise. Faintly annoying yet strangely endearing—Dipper has never been so completely _adored, a_ nd the feeling is utterly bizarre to him.

 

Bill aches for Dipper more than anything else, and latches on with a terrifying sort of raw need.

 

Dipper sighs deeply through his nose. At himself, for getting angry. At his faulty typewriter, once again out of ink.

 

At Bill, who had the spare refill in one absent-minded tentacle.

 

(It’s dripping on the floor, now. Splatters and smears of sheer black that seep into the cracks with a desperate fervor. Dipper is comforted by the fact that, should he ever truly be in need, he could simply wring Bill dry of his fluids as a replacement.)

 

“I _need_ that.” He grouses, twisting in his creaky chair to face his partner. Rather desperately, too. Meeting Bill had somehow granted him such a plethora of inspiration that he had churned out a novel and a half within the first _week_.

 

He can’t stop; not for his aching bones, nor _food_ , nor _sleep_ he was almost done with the _sequel_ —

 

“ _Do_ you?” Bill asks innocently, waving the refill mockingly. “I think you need a _break_ , boy.”

 

“I _don’t_.” Dipper reaches for the ink, only to be rebuffed with a derisive snort. Bill slithers away, leaving a trail of saltwater to seep into the bare wooden floor of his room leading to his bathroom.

 

(Why doesn’t he have a rug? He knows he needs one. He thinks it whenever he sees the floor planks warp under Bill’s trail of brine. He most definitely thinks it when his back is scraped to hell and back after one of Bill’s particularly _eager_ romps.)

 

“I think you _do_.” Bill’s voice floats over, teasing with a hint of that thinly veiled frustration that spoke of his distinct brand of starvation.

 

Dipper’s eyes flick up and over.

 

It’s always fascinating to watch Bill move. Fluid as the water he lives in, he oozes around crumpled pages and stacks of books as if completely unhindered by gravity.  His arms coil and lift, spread and contract, somehow never touching the maze of trash and laundry trickled about the floor. He remembers the feel of them on his skin—rough yet slick in equal measure.

 

Dipper stares vacantly at the darkness slithering away, blood rushing up like a rising tide, and thinks that maybe he could use just a _little_ break.


	3. Bubbly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Self Care with Dipper Pines (bubblebath edition)

The water is as black as the void of space, with odd swirls of gold fractals. It smelt, oddly, of patchouli and lavender. Steam rises to warm the humid air with its fragrant embrace, numbing and sweet.

 

“It’s a _bath bomb_.” Dipper grouses defensively. “It’s _healthy_.”

 

Bill, pressed against the opposite wall of Dipper’s cramped bathroom, _stares_.  Squints, brow furrowed faintly, and says, “so it’s not _ink_?”

 

“ _No_ , Bill. Why the hell would I bath in _ink_.”

 

Bill shrugs. Uncoils from the plumbing connecting the sink to the wall to creep closer and says mildly, “‘ _Seen weirder kinks_.”

 

Dipper splutters. He sends a wave of starry void over the side of the tub and onto the tile as Bill settles himself on the rim of the tub to peer inside.

 

Dipper is only _slightly_ grateful for the bubble bath mixture to hide in, also a part of the self-care gift from Mabel.

 

(She sent it a month ago, in a basket that also had bath salts and scented candles. He’s still trying to figure out a clever way to say “please send twenty more” without sounding desperate or, god forbid, possibly _weirder_ than usual. He told her he’d cut back on the weird and it still feels like the lie cut his teeth and tongue on the way out.)

 

“Thought it wasn’t mine, though.” Bill huffs a bit. He dips a curious finger in the water, watching the glitter swirl in eddies and tides around the new intrusion like fish around an insect. Then, a bit gruffly, “Got a bit _jealous_ , is all.”

 

Dipper blinks at him. He tries to wrap his head around the idea and it breaks like new taffy.

 

It never ceases to amazing him how utterly _bizarre_ Bill could be.

 

He huffs out a little laugh, feeling tension leaking out of his body as he settles further in the water. A funny thought; sometimes he forgets he’s not the _only_ weird one here.

 

“ _Jealous_ ,” he snickers, “about somebody else’s _ink_.”

 

Bill dips his hand in deeper to blindly pinch, looking embarrassed but a little amused himself. He has a crooked grin that made his visible eye crinkle in a tender sort of sweetness that looked a little pained, too.

 

Dipper thinks it suits him just fine.

 

“What do you do out there,” he asks some time later, when Bill was done with his prodding and instead turned his attention to the collection of rough sponges idling by the tub. “when you’re all by yourself?”

 

Bill hums a bit. He looks a bit tuckered out, somehow. A bit melty around the edges, as if he wanted to sink in the tub and take a little nap. He tosses a sponge between his many arms in idle thought and eyes the rippling water.

 

Dipper refrains from indulging him, knowing that if he allowed Bill to share the tub with him he’d not be getting out anytime _soon_.

 

He was supposed to be taking a breather, after all.

 

“Sometimes,” Bill says, his voice a quiet murmur that seemed to echo across cracked tiles, “I’ll look for trash on the seafloor and shuck it onto the boats that go by.”

 

Dipper snorts at the image; a barnacle-encrusted bottle suddenly flung out of the sea and into some unfortunate cruise-goer’s face. Of cans and frisbees and kites dumped onto the people who tossed them so carelessly in.

 

“Or I’ll look for shells. Decorate a bit. Eat a crab, maybe.” Bill smiles a little fuzzily before it fades like a flickering light. “There’s not as much as there used to be. Before people came here.”

 

Twisting the fizzing remains of the bath bomb in idle fingers, Dipper asks him in a small voice, “do you…wish there were less of us, here?”

 

Bill dips his arms in the warm water with a small hum, seeming to think it over. The effort seems to deflate him; he’s steadily inching further into Dipper’s space, though he had sworn not to about half an hour ago. The knuckles of one hand graze the flesh of Dipper’s knee and settles there, kneading lazily.

 

“No,” he finally says, “if I wanted to see _less_ of you, I’d just go to the trench.”

 

“The… _trench_?”

 

“Goes on forever,” Bill hums. “Dark, and warm. Sometimes there’s something there. Mostly there isn’t, though. _Hasn’t_ , for a long time.”

 

Dipper isn’t quite sure what he means. He is, if he was being completely honest, a little afraid to ask. There was something in Bill’s tone; something a bit melancholy. The frayed seam of a memory just barely ready to unravel.

 

“I’ll go back there one day,” Bill continues, “maybe in a long time. When I’m ready.”

 

“Ready for what?”

 

Bill smiles in fractures like broken glass.

 

He doesn’t say anything.

 

Dipper doesn’t ask again.

 

 

 


	4. Momentary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper tests Bill's patience with proximity.

“It’s getting colder,” Bill remarks from his perch on Dipper’s desk, smudging pages and ink under his writhing form. He’s toying absently with the space heater, tapping his nails along the metal side and turning the dials experimentally, as if it would magically make the room ten degrees warmer if he broke it right.

 

“Yeah its almost like the season is changing or something,” Dipper says in his most Neutral voice possible. It’s a bit difficult trying to balance his typewriter on his bed without pitching it sideways, but he’s not going to admit defeat quite yet. Bill has his desk but he has plenty of space over here, too.

 

His phone timer reads thirty minutes.

 

“I’m _cold_ ,” Bill says, insistently. The space heater creaks warningly under tense hands, rattles like a window pane against a storm.

 

“I’m pretty cozy over here,” Dipper replies contentedly. He has a flannel blanket, courtesy of Grunkle Stan. He’s sweltering under it.

 

He taps out another long sentence of gibberish, listening to the soothing ticks of turning gears. He doesn’t regret buying it, no matter how much Mabel insists a laptop would be easier. Modern keyboards have _nothing_ on old-fashioned metal keys and levers.

 

In the corner of his eye, he sees Bill twitching at each sound.

 

“ _Noisy_ ,” he hears Bill mutter under his breath. Dipper has noticed that Bill utterly despises the sound of modern machinery, though he refuses to admit it. He thinks the leviathan could easily be chased away with the sounds of pistons and fire.

 

“ _Who’s_ noisy?” The words bubble unbidden past an amused grin. He can’t help but laugh a little at Bill’s aggravation. He is so rarely bothered by anything.

 

Thirty-three.

 

Bill makes a sharp tsk of a noise. He has a glare directed at the floor as he vigorously shakes the small heater, listening intently to the sounds of Stanley and Stanford arguing two floors down. Coiled dense and almost fever bright with his agitation, he says unhappily, “ _Me_. Them. _You_.”

 

“Everyone, then.” Dipper nods sagely. He makes a mental note to throw out the heater—it was probably broken to bits on the inside. “Sounds about right.”

 

He returns to typing—but gentler, now. There isn’t much he can do about the clicking levers aside from easing up on the force, but its a bit less satisfying hitting the space bar.

 

Not that he’s really typing much of anything.

 

(‘ _oryh klp fkhulvk klp vzhhwob gdunob iruhyhu prphqwv lq wkh yrlg wr hfkr iruhyhu_ ’ spits out the keys under absent minded fingertips.)

 

The space heater is gently deposited on the floor.

 

“ _Hold me_ ,” Bill rasps. “ _Please_?”

 

There’s a little crack in his voice. Dipper feels like his heart contracts and then _shatters_ under the force.

 

“Okay.” The typewriter is shoved aside, and he welcomes coiling limbs and frigid skin into his bed. His bones groan under the pressure of winding arms and shifting density, but the weight is familiar and welcome. He would be glad to be compacted into a singularity under Bill’s obsessive gravity.

 

Thirty-five minutes, reads the forgotten timer, half-buried under ink stained blankets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course I have to write about it being cold out when it is, in reality, almost summer. You think I live in this time stream? HARD PASS.


	5. Teeth

Dipper would be the first to admit that he is not the most sane person there is in Gravity falls. If anything, he would say that he might as well be dubbed _batshit crazy_ at this point.

 

‘This point’ being that he is sitting on the floor of his bedroom in the attic of a shack that always leans slightly to the left surrounded by diagrams, translations, and reference material of grimoires so ancient he couldn't actually buy them.

 

This wasn’t for his novel, though he’s beginning to wonder if he should sneak some of it in just to make up for the lost time. Waiting for his editor to get back to him with corrections was a bore, especially when Bill was still out doing gods knows what out of his sight, but this was sort of important.

 

(…He hopes Bill is doing something along the lines of ‘eating crabs’ and not ‘drowning whatever sorry asshole who happened to cross his path that day’. The news has been flooded with reports of missing persons who went out to surf and hadn’t come back, and though Bill swears good behavior Dipper still has his suspicions.)

 

He flips through a few pages on his book on translating Sumerian and scribbles more into the margins of a copied ancient scroll. Bill was some sort of enigma to him that he was desperate to unravel, but the only means he really had were some internet searches and museum trips.

 

Dipper sighs, scrubbing at his face in aggravation. There wasn’t much recorded about Leviathans, aside from the fact that they were ancient and secretive. Possibly cataclysmic gods.

 

—Mostly conjecture, of course. He doubts some of these were written by people who had ever actually met a leviathan. Just idle fantasies of bored, plague stricken people. Not to mention he’s pretty sure that Bill would have gladly mislead them as to his true nature just for kicks.

 

He tosses a stack of translations to the ‘finished’ pile.

 

Bill was the only Leviathan he’d ever met. As such he had no idea what constituted as what was normal or bizarre for them, so trying to untangle Bill’s behavior was a bit of a chore. He certainly had a different set of morals and priorities than Dipper, but he’s not entirely sure which was from his heritage and which was just _him_.

 

There was a pile of strange looking teeth under his pillow that morning. Absolutely none of them look like anything he’d ever seen.

 

They were almost certainly all from Bill, somehow.

 

He thinks some of them are possibly fossils, though of what he is a bit nervous to think about. Ancient beasts from legends, or other leviathans, or some sort of undiscovered creature hiding in deep sea trenches…

 

Theres a bit of clamoring downstairs. He hears Stanford greet his brother, and then say something about the rising tide.

 

Dipper glances at the pile of teeth next to his bed.

 

If anyone would know, he reasons as he picks up a few, his mad-scientist marine-biologist great-uncle would.

 

(What a _mouthful_. Mabel had suggested shortening it to ‘ms marbgrunk’ during their last video call and he still can’t bring himself to use it without dissolving into helpless laughter. He must never tell Bill.)

 

“Ah, Dipper. Something the matter?”

 

Dipper stops short, nearly tripping down the stairs in his haste.

 

“Um,” he shuffles a bit, embarrassed. Stanford always seemed utterly collected and sure; it was still hard to stand next to him. “I just wanted you to identify something for me, if you could?”

 

Stanford adjusts his glasses, brows raised ever so slightly. “Certainly. Come on in, then. Better light in the lab. Found something interesting, have you?”

 

He follows contentedly, nodding. “Something, uh, like that.”

 

Stanford sheds his trench coat and drapes it over his seat, sitting after Dipper drags over a nearby stool. His desk is as cluttered with pages as his nephew’s, though his was more of the biological fare than odd anecdotes about alien sightings.

 

“What do you have for me, then?” The desk lamp is switched on, and he pulls out a scope from his breast pocket with a practiced little flourish.

 

Dipper puts one of the largest teeth in his pocket onto the table under the glass.

 

There’s silence.

 

The bad kind.

 

“…Gave you one of these, did he?” Stanford’s voice is frigid like ice, and Dipper instantly regrets every choice he’s ever made in his entire life.

 

(Kind of. He couldn’t really regret Bill even if his life depended on it.)

 

Dipper shifts on the stool, uncomfortable.

 

“…Yes,” then, hoping to whatever god was out there that this didn’t make it worse, he continues, “…among others.”

 

He tips more onto the table.

 

It’s _worse_.

 

“ _Dipper_ ,” Stanford’s voice is a warning.

 

“They were under my pillow this morning,” Dipper blurts, cringing inwards. “He didn’t really uh, give them to me, _per se_. He might’ve just sort of stuck them there for….uh. Reasons?”

 

Stanford gives him a flat look.

 

Then, carefully picking up one of them and holding it to the light to reveal vein-like webbing of opal, says “these are _trophies_.”

 

“…Trophies?”

 

Stanford sets it down. He sweeps them into little piles and groups in vaguely jaw-shaped rings and points to each in turn, “Kraken. Megalodon. Hydra.”

 

He settles back in his creaking chair, rubbing at his eyes. “Those are all _Leviathans_ , Dipper. They eat their own.”

 

Dipper’s voice withers in his throat.

 

“They’re not meant to _socialize_.” Stanford reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out a particularly nasty looking tooth—jet black and with cracks full of violet quartz. “They’re meant to _eat_. Their entire existence revolves around eating absolutely _everything,_ and then _combusting_ to form new galaxies _.”_

He points the tooth at his nephew, voice crackling with anger.

 

“They do not know _love_ ,” the tooth drops to the table and rattles among the others. “and hoping that _he_ can is a _fool’s errand_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excuse me while I just update everything today LOL


	6. Chatter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Advice from an old friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those unaware; Will Cipher is a mute megalodon. I scribbled him a bit on my blog and now I'm just steadily looking for excuses to add him to the party.

“I might be going a little bit crazy.” Bill says, staring vacantly at the nothing in front of him.

 

Will says nothing, observing him with the faint curiosity that could only be stemmed from boredom.

 

Bill looks over at him, at the silence. He’s lounging in the shallow sand that makes up part of Bill’s cove, almost invisible in the faint light cast by the moon overhead. His fins breach the water like knives through butter, grey-blue and glittering with rough scales.

 

He is tempted, just as always, to strangle and devour.

 

But Will is about as strong as he is, with a gaping maw and serrated teeth to match, so like always he settles a bit deeper in the warm sand.

 

“Do you know what I mean?” He continues. Turns his gaze back to the pier, to the leaning shack faintly outlined in the darkness. It’s only been a day and he wants to crawl his way back. “I just… _want_ , him. Always. _Forever_.”

 

Will tilts his head.

 

“To eat?” he signs, fingers flicking through saltwater like the breeze around sails.

 

Bill furrows his brow. “Kind of?”

 

“‘Kind of,’” the megalodon signs mockingly, splashing a bit of water Bill’s way with his gestures. “ _Eat him twice_.”

 

“Can’t be forever if he’s _dead_ ,” Bill grouses, flicking water back with a snap of an arm. His markings flare blue with his agitation, warningly alluring in the dark.

 

Will snorts.

 

Then, idly, “They don’t have forevers. Only moments.”

 

“I know.”

 

Will blinks, nice and slow. “You could have moments, if you wanted. Like the others.”

 

“I want forever.” Bill whispers, voice swallowed by the sea. “I want forever with _him_.”

 

“Pick one.” Will’s tail hits the water with an air of finality. “Forever without, or moments with him.”

 

Bill is silent. Contemplative.

 

Will almost wishes he wasn’t. Silence from Bill was always a bad sign.

 

“…I don’t know yet,” Bill whispers.

 

The other leviathan burrows a bit more comfortably in the sand with a faint sigh. “You don’t have long to _know_.”

 

“Yes.” comes the faint reply.

 

He wishes he knew what it was for.

 

Will eyes him critically.

 

“ _Stupid_.” He signs. Propping himself up to look at the shack in the distance he continues, “If you don’t choose _I’ll do it for you_.”

 

“ _Don’t you dare_ ,” Bill hisses, flaring red. His neck all but breaks at how quickly he turns to see Will’s amused sneer. He is a swirling mass of darkness ready to devour at the mere thought of interference. “ _I will kill you now; see if I won’t._ ”

 

Will sniggers, unfazed. “Then you already know what you want, don’t you?”

 

Bill blinks.

 

“Oh,” he says. He deflates a little bit, though he’s still poised to attack. “ _Oh_.”

 

“Stupid.” Will signs again, smug.

 

He is far too gleeful about this.

 

“ _You’re_ stupid.” Bill mutters petulantly, splashing seawater at the other’s retreating form.

 

The cove is quiet after Will’s departure. The water ripples and washes away his imprint from the sand, as if he’d never been there at all.

 

“Oh _fuck_.” Bill blurts. He’d forgotten again. “Hey—hey! _Stop eating the people on the coast already, Pine tree keeps blaming me for it!_ ”

 

The ocean is silent.


	7. Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part One; Wherein the Idle Novelist Meets an Equally Idle Megalodon.

It’s about a week into winter when it occurs to Dipper that Stanford Pines knew an _awful lot_ about Leviathans. 

 

Lying on his bed and staring blankly at the Megalodon tooth twisting in his idle fingers he pauses. Had Ford met one? Not Bill, certainly. No way. Bill would have _told_ him. 

 

…Probably.

 

He squints at the tooth.

 

Asking Ford about anything related to Bill was liable to incite his anger, so Dipper wasn’t too keen on doing so. The man was completely irritated with his Leviathan’s existence, though he thought the other would at least cool down a little bit by now. 

 

Dipper gets up and wanders to his door, slipping the tooth back in his pocket. 

 

He has to ask. The internet stopped being helpful months ago, and he only had so much money to spend on grimoires in languages he didn’t even know. 

 

Ford went out to gather samples again, but Dipper reasons he could meet him at the pier. Perhaps offering assistance would lighten the blow?

 

He shrugs on his coat and opens the front door, being immediately met with a blast of cold air. 

 

It’s not as bad as midwinter but its still colder than Piedmont. As he trudges down the creaking pier to the lower levels where he usually meets Bill, he’s grateful his sister keeps sending him her hand-knit sweaters.

 

(She sells them online now. Surprisingly she’s making a tidy profit off of her hand-knit clothes and crafts—he’s almost jealous. His editor keeps sending back his manuscripts with such trivial corrections he wonders if he’ll ever be published at all.)

 

Ford wasn’t back yet. He’s not really surprised; the scientist could spend the rest of his life on a boat and he’d never complain.

 

Dipper sighs, sitting on the edge of the pier. 

 

He misses Bill. It’s only been two days but thanks to the weather the leviathan has been showing up less and less.

 

“It’s _cold_ ,” he had whined from under a pile of semi-damp blankets last week, barely visible aside from a stray tentacle. “It’s hard to swim when it’s like this. I’m usually just sleeping through winter, y’know. _It sucks_.”

 

Dipper sighs, staring down at the dark water.

 

“I miss you.” he mumbles softly. “You _asshole_.”

 

The pier shudders. _Hard._

 

“What the—?” scrambling away from the ledge, Dipper watches in mild horror as a massive shadow weaves its way through the water under the legs of the pier. It disappears further down when he inches closer to take a better look, and the pier shudders once more before all falls silent and disturbingly still.

 

Hesitant, concerned, Dipper peeks under the pier. 

 

A face stares back at him. 

 

With a strangled yelp Dipper recoils back onto the creaking wooden boards, heart contracting in his chest.

 

“Wh—“ He watches ripples move on the surface, signaling that the other had gone back under. 

 

_It wasn’t Bill._ It _wasn’t_ , but it sure as hell looked like—

 

The pier shudders again. In the corner of his eye he can see one of the legs of the pier tilt. 

 

“Stop that!” he scrambles back to the edge, horrified. “My _Grunkle Stan_ built this thing—do you think he has any idea how to build a pier properly?! For all I know that could be the only one holding this damn thing up!”

 

The face is there, staring at him. Almost _bored_.

 

He… _looked_ like Bill. A Bill with black hair and blue eyes. 

 

A twin. 

 

_Sort of._

 

_“_ Who… _what_ are you?”

 

Not-Bill doesn’t reply. Only blinks and inches a little closer. 

 

“Okay.” Dipper says awkwardly. “Dumb question. _Leviathan_. Obviously.”

 

He really wishes Bill were here, if only to strangle him for not saying anything about the _other_ ancient beast wandering the coastline.

 

The leviathan glances down at the water and goes back under.

 

“…huh.” Dipper sits back on the pier, puzzled. Another leviathan. _Bill’s twin_? They seemed to be different species, though. Cousins? Did all leviathans have the same face? 

There’s a loud crunching noise. 

 

He looks back down, only to see the new leviathan biting a crab clean in half, shell and all. 

 

“You…” complete disbelief. “ _You’re not supposed to eat the shells?_ ”

 

Dipper would admit that he’s not an expert by any means on marine or leviathan life, but he’s pretty sure nothing with human features should be able to _unhinge their jaw_ _in order to swallow crabs whole_.

 

Nauseated, Dipper recoils a bit from the ledge. The leviathan’s teeth match the one in his pocket so he knows— _Megalodon_. That’s two now that he’s seen. The odds are astronomical—who knows when he’ll get another chance like this again?

 

The sort-of shark is still staring at him. As if patiently waiting for something, though he’s clueless as to what. 

 

“Can I…ask you some questions?” He’s a little wary, remembering his Grunkle’s warnings. _They don’t love. They consume._ _They combust_. 

 

He pats his coat pockets, rifling through them, knowing—now which pocket—?

 

Pulling out a plastic wrapped twinky, he waves it at the face in the water. “I’ll give you this if you do, okay?”

 

There’s a small motion of gnashing teeth, which Dipper takes as a ‘yes’.

 

Satisfied, he sits closer to the ledge and pulls out his hand-sized notebook and pen. Gnawing on the end of it, he considers his first question—if this one is anything like Bill, he doesn’t have much time.

 

“Are you related to Bill somehow? Like…siblings? half-siblings?”

 

The other inches closer. A small shake of the head says no, they’re not. 

 

“Huh,” puzzled but accepting, Dipper scribbles in his book. _Unrelated despite same facial structure. Possibly all of species have same face? Must ask Bill if he can unhinge jaw._ “Can you glow, too?”

 

A nod. Progress!

 

“Can you show me?” eagerly he leans forward. 

 

The Megalodon smiles with serrated teeth.

 

It’s the last thing he sees before he’s yanked under.


	8. Answers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Two; A Meeting Gone South.

 

The water is frigid like ice and chases any semblance of warmth from his body as talon-tipped nails dig into his clothes in order to better drag him down down _down_.

 

It’s dark here, and terribly still.

 

Dipper’s lungs burn but he knows better than to let the air out right away. Bill has dragged him under enough times that he’s almost a pro at holding his breath but its so _so_ difficult when there are rows of serrated teeth inches from his neck.

 

The megalodon is easily three times his length and just as strong, pulling him along with such easy twists of fins that its almost like there’s no effort at all.

 

He twists, panic strangling his insides as he struggles against his jacket, hoping to whatever god was out there that he could get away but knowing it was hopeless. What was he in comparison to something _ancient_?

 

Shock briefly flickers across the megalodon’s face before he’s released.

 

He almost misses the triangular flashes of red in the darkness.

 

 _Safe_ , Dipper thinks, just briefly, before a tail twice his size cracks across his ribs and sends him rushing upwards.

 

In a haze of pain he can see Bill, luminously red and surrounded in plumes of violent ink, more angry than he’d ever seen in his life. A vision of wrath, blood oozing from his mouth like smoke from when he’d bitten the other leviathan, arms writhing and flickering in patterns that screamed _danger_.

 

A rather large chunk was missing from the megalodon’s tail, revealing sinew and muscle.

 

Dipper squints.

 

That’s not fear, he realizes with growing dread. That’s… _smug?_

 

And then he realizes.

 

_He’s out of air._

 

Bill seems to realize this at roughly the same time he does; all limbs freezing in contorted twists that were painful just to look at.

 

He’s _livid_.

 

But he rushes upward all the same, hooking one arm across Dipper’s waist in order to better drag him up to the pier.

 

“ _Bi-ill_ —“ He rasps, agonized, choking on salt water as Bill hauls him onto the lowest platform. His entire body is numb from the cold but that doesn’t stop him from curling as close as he could to his leviathan, shuddering from both the fear and frost. Pain flickers like lights across his ribs and he knows theres some sort of fracture there.

 

Even so Bill’s density is relieving as always, limbs following familiar paths to sooth. Somehow he’s warm like a fever despite the clear chill in the air and sea, allowing Dipper to leech heat from his skin with as much contact as was possible.

 

He was still flashing red, sneering down at the choppy water.

 

“ _Bill_ ,” he tries again, gasping against the pain. He needs to get inside, close to a fire, _something._ At this rate he was going to get frostbite.

 

The leviathan makes a noise that’s half an inhuman growl and half aggravated swearing before he realizes the megalodon had come back to the surface looking utterly amused.

 

“What the _hell_ —“ Dipper struggles up before being quickly flattened back by an errant limb, cut off.

 

A smug grin. One grey-black hand rises from the water and makes a complicated gesture he’s not entirely sure is supposed to work given standard physics and bodily anatomy before his vision starts to blur.

 

“Stop!” Bill shrieks, panicked. He covers Dipper’s eyes with one grasping hand, frantic. “Shut up _shut up he’ll go blind—!”_

There’s the noise of a motorboat; Dipper can hear Stanford’s angry swearing amongst Bill’s, and the sound of a loud splash just before the sea returns to its usual course.

 

Dipper pries Bill’s hand off, groaning. “ _Ribs_ —hurt. Ease up a bit.”

 

The hand pushes back, resistant, before falling away. Bill’s anxious face swims into view, eyes flicking red-blue even now.

 

The pier looming above them is a blur, and Stanford in the distance is a smudge of a muted red-tan, steadily growing larger as he drives his boat towards them.

 

Dipper blinks. Rubs at his eyes. Blinks some more.

 

“ _Oh._ ” he says blankly. 

 

Dismay flickers across Bill’s face. He is the only thing within Dipper’s vision that remains unchanged.

 

“Do you still have _colors_?” the leviathan asks, looking about as agonized as Dipper’s ribs felt.

 

“Ye-ah…?” he coughs a little, cringing as he sits up. “I can’t really tell. It’s kind of cloudy anyways.”

 

There’s a small thud as Stanford’s boat hits the pier.

 

“ _Kid_! Are you okay?” warmth suffuses Dipper’s being as the biologist drapes his coat over him, the scent of coffee and sea brine filtering into his nose as he wraps it more firmly around himself. Another thud echoes as the bottom of a harpoon gun hits the pier. “ _What happened_?”

 

Dipper cringes.

 

“I…may have…met a Megalodon. I _think_.”

 

Dead silence.

 

There is a very deep sigh from Stanford.

 

“… _Cursed_.” The biologist mutters, pinching his nose. “Swear to… _alright_. Let’s get you inside. Tell me about it when you’re not about to lose your fingers.”

 

Despite the clear aggravation Stanford is gentle when he helps Dipper stand on wobbling legs.

 

“You too, _Bill_.” Stanford says sharply over his shoulder. “Inside. _Now_.”

 

Bill makes a noise like a rattled teakettle but follows them to the lab.

 

Dipper doesn’t look at him, squinting instead at the smudges of the pier, trying to parse the wood grain he’d so easily seen before.


	9. Response

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Three; The After-Aftermath

 

A change of clothes and a seat by the fireplace later finds Dipper hunched over on the couch in the lab, trying not to blink as Stanford shines a light into his eyes. There is heavy gauze wrapped around his chest, keeping him from moving lest he aggravate his ribs. Three of them with micro fractures—it’s a miracle it wasn’t worse, but to be honest he’s pretty sure that hit hadn’t been aimed for him.

 

“Seems the damage wasn’t _too_ terrible,” the biologist mutters, clicking the pen light off in order to scribble in a spare notepad his recordings. “You’ve lost a bit of color to them but that’s to be expected.”

 

Finally freed from proddings, Dipper scrubs at his eyes and blinks away the blotches. “What was that about? Some sort of magic? A _curse_?”

 

Bill makes a muffled noise from where he was wrapped around Dipper’s legs.

 

“It’s just their language.” Stanford sighs, giving the leviathan on the floor a particularly frosty look.  Trying to lean over Bill was doing a number on his back and he did _not_ appreciate it. “Hearing it makes you deaf to everything but them, so _seeing_ it is roughly the same.”

 

“Will doesn’t have a voice,” The leviathan props his head on Dipper’s knee looking irate. “He doesn’t know any english, either. He’s just an _asshole_.” His grip tightens to the point of numbing before relaxing again, leaving behind an almost pleasant pins and needles sensation in its wake.

 

Dipper ruffles Bill’s hair absent-mindedly, musing that losing his notebook wasn’t so bad if it had faulty information in it. He was played like a _fiddle_.

 

“His name is _Will_?” He smiles a little as Bill slumps on his lap looking utterly despondent. It’s not so bad, he thinks. Could be much, _much_ worse. “Are you related?”

 

“They don’t have familial concepts,” Stanford says as Bill opens his mouth to answer. Ignoring the surly glare sent his way, the scientist continues, “ _Certainly_ they were made from the same matter when the solar system began, but they’re not related like you and I are.”

 

“ _I_ named him,” Bill huffs before Stanford continues. “I named all of us! ME.”

 

“Yes, yes,” Stanford wrinkles his nose, wandering away to rifle through his desk. “You are the leader of the bunch. The strongest Kraken out there. _What a guy_.”

 

Dipper quietly locks that bit of information away. _Trophies, krakens, leaders and stardust._ More pieces to a puzzle just barely out of reach.

 

The biologist pulls out a pair of glasses, a fine crack in one of the lenses.

 

“This will have to do for now until we get you your own.”

 

Dipper accepts the frames, sliding them on and grimacing at the change. They nearly put his vision right but left him feeling like he was staring at the world through a tv border. “…Thanks.”

 

Bill squints at the frames unhappily.

 

“ _No_ ,” he grouses agitatedly, reaching for them. “He looks like _you_.”

 

“It’s just for a little while,” Dipper says soothingly, leaning out of reach and catching the hands closing in on his face. “Not a big de—“

 

“That’s the only reason you picked him in the first place,” Stanford says blankly from his desk.

 

Bill freezes. Turns slowly, eyes wide in shocked fury. _Betrayal_ , Dipper recognizes. As if Stanford had just spilled the one nasty secret between them.

 

“Am I _wrong_?” Stanford says innocently.

 

“ _Not. Now_.” Bill hisses, flaring red and condensing as if ready to spring.

 

Unperturbed, Stanford takes off his glasses to clean them on his shirt. “You endangered his life repeatedly with your meddling. The least you can do is be _honest_ with him.”

 

“I _am_.” his grip is painfully tight and Dipper is rapidly realizing that this is probably one of the worst situations he could be in. They had fought before but this was a _war rekindled_.

 

“A lie of omission is still a _lie_ ,” annoyed, the biologist returns the frames to their rightful place. “You haven’t told him a damn thing about what _you_ are or what _we_ had—“

 

“ _This can probably wait til later_ ,” Dipper wheezes, almost aggressively patting Bill’s arms in order to get him to release his now numb legs.

 

“If you don’t tell him _I will_.”

 

Bill is silent.


End file.
